Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @10:11AM
from the ice-tractor-cometh dept.

Arvisp writes "In 1912 Australian explorer Douglas Mawson planned to fly over the southern pole. His lost plane has now been found. The plane – the first off the Vickers production line in Britain – was built in 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers executed the first powered flight. For the past three years, a team of Australian explorers has been engaged in a fruitless search for the aircraft, last seen in 1975. Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."

I'll claim rights on a second story and write the one that has the pilot still sitting in the cockpit with his chest blown out. And several miles below the ice surface there's a temple that's a home to aliens that another alien race comes in to exterminate after the expedition team frees them.

I'll claim rights on a second story and write the one that has the pilot still sitting in the cockpit with his chest blown out.

How about something original. Like a story about how its not a plane but an alien spacecraft carrying an extraterrestrial shapechanging parasite that begins killing off staff at a Antarctica research base.

I have a funny feeling this "Antarctic's First Plane" thing started when an American dared point out that the first plane to fly in Antarctica was the "Stars and Stripes" (built by the legendary Sherman Farchild [wikipedia.org], and one of his pioneering aerial surveys). Then, as is always the case when an American dares claim a "first" in anything, hundreds of Europeans, Canadians, Australians, etc. with inferiority complexes immediately rushed out and found an obscure case of someone *shipping* a plane to Antarctica befo

well... can they take off on their own given enough distance? They are only chucked off because the air craft carrier is not long enough for them to achieve the speed they need, they can take off fine from an airstrip, so they are airplanes that don't require catapults... now, put wright brothers "the flyer" on a airstrip with no wind and tell it to take off, it won't happen.

By the way, the 1903 flight of wright brothers was contested by one of the witnessess, the telegraph operator said that on that day

well... can they take off on their own given enough distance? They are only chucked off because the air craft carrier is not long enough for them to achieve the speed they need, they can take off fine from an airstrip, so they are airplanes that don't require catapults... now, put wright brothers "the flyer" on a airstrip with no wind and tell it to take off, it won't happen.

Why does it matter? Since when does the definition of airplane include the mandatory condition that it be able to take off under its

You do realize that the Wright Brothers' plane was not the first airplane invented, right? There were other airplanes before them, which successfully flew (I think some of them were French). The problem was, the earlier planes took off, flew in a straight line some distance, and crashed. The Wright Brothers' plane was the first to master turning. Only an idiot would claim the WB invented the first airplane; what they invented was the first airplane that could actually maneuver.

That is a good case and we can agree that in 1908 the thing could maneuver well. Now, go ask joe six pack who invented the first airplane and guess what will his answer be.

The Flyer was a capable glider, but still, claiming it as first airplane as the most americans do is silly. Heck Santos Dummont even won the prize for making the first dirigible that could be actually controlled, which he took to circle the eiffel tower, still we don't claim he invented the dirigibles.

Again, the Flyer was powered with a gasoline engine IIRC. A powered heavier-than-air machine is an "airplane", not a "glider". It doesn't matter if it requires ground-based infrastructure to launch. So yes, they invented the first airplane that could do figures of eight.

As for Joe Sixpack, he's a moron who probably also believes the Earth is 6500 years old and that Sarah Palin would be a good President even though she thinks Africa is a country (or, he's a moron who thinks Barack Obama is a great Preside

You do realize that the Wright Brothers' plane was not the first airplane invented, right?... The Wright Brothers' plane was the first to master turning. Only an idiot would claim the WB invented the first airplane;...

Actually, arguments like this are really just an artifact of the common desire to reduce everything to a bumper-sticker-like slogan. The reality is, as usual, that "the airplane" wasn't invented out of nothing by some single person or team. The real story is more interesting. Powered flig

Any claim that "the airplane" was invented by one person/team at one place is utterly bogus.

Exactly. The Wrights only invented a way of bending the wings to enable controlled maneuvering. Other people had already invented propellers, the basic wing shape, etc.

The thing I think is really bogus, however, is the State of Ohio constantly trying to claim they're "first in flight" (like on the new quarters), just because the Wright Brothers, and some astronauts, were born there. Big deal. That just shows that

The Wright Brothers were based in Ohio when they started the experiments that lead to the flights at Kitty Hawk. They frequently returned to Ohio to do additional research. Kitty Hawk was 'just' the place that had the right conditions to test their theories because they were pushing the limits of technology at the time.

In 1904, after the Kitty Hawk flights, they improved on the design, with Flyer II and Flyer III. Those were flown out of a base in Ohio. These flights were measured in minutes and miles a

Which is exactly why we should end this "first" bullshit in the first place (no pun intended). The fact is that most great accomplishments in history are the result of the hard work of a lot of people working together, on the backbone of the work of generations of predecessors, spurned by the occasional advances of individual brilliant minds, and rarely limited to any one country. Both the Australian plane and the American one were built on the work of the Wright Brothers, whose three-axis control innovatio

If we get rid of "firsts", patents would be pointless, recognition would be negligible, and China would probably take over the world... or whoever has the cheapest labor. That would start a spiral that we probably don't want to be a part of. "Firsts" inspire people to compete, giving us all better things.

This European is always astonished how Alcock and Brown's achievement of 1919 is so overshadowed by Lindbergh's 1927 flight. Perhaps that's one of the sources of resentment that lead to 'pissing contests'?

So who was the first to fly from mainland America to mainland Europe? Lindbergh took off from the island of Manhattan...:)

When we get to ideas of 'mainland' or 'solo' into events rather than simply crossing a vast ocean, well, where do we stop? When the first person arrives on the moon solo, and one looks forward to that hell of an achievement, will they upstage Armstrong and Aldrin?

No Autopilots back then. Difficult plane to fly as well. A solo crossing was in fact much more difficult than a team crossing. If you can't figure that out then I will just believe that you have figured it out (since no one can possibly be that fucking stupid) and have decided to ignore that fact so you can be a true anti American.

This European is always astonished how Alcock and Brown's achievement of 1919 is so overshadowed by Lindbergh's 1927 flight. Perhaps that's one of the sources of resentment that lead to 'pissing contests'?

Because Lindbergh was the first to do it solo

And Alcock and Brown weren't the first to make the flight over the Atlantic, although they were the first to do a non-stop. The crew of the NC-4 did it first (but they used more than one aircraft) Alcock and Brown did have balls - climbing out on the wings to chip off the ice as they flew.

Doing it solo wasn't a requirement of the Orteig Prize. The fact that he was able to go from a New York airfield to a Paris airfield was the big thing. It showed that transatlantic flight from one major destination to another was possible.

Several well known aviators, with tri-engine planes and multiple person air crews had attempted it but failed, sometimes fatally. Lindbergh, a relative unknown, did it solo, with a single engine monoplane.

Alcock and Brown flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919. According to the specs from "The Daily Mail", "the aviator who shall first cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane in flight from any point in the United States of America, Canada or Newfoundland and any point in Great Britain or Ireland" in 72 continuous hours" would win the ten thousand pound prize.

Alcock and Brown did it non-stop. But a couple of weeks earlier an American airplane, the NC-4, was the first to cross the Atlantic under its own power.

The Wright brothers had 5 major innovations that set them apart:
1. A propellor design that was 90% efficient rather than 50%
2. Wing warping for roll control
3. Rudder attached to the wing warping for controlled turns, solving the adverse yaw problem
4. Innovative balance in the wind tunnel, used the wind tunnel to design the airfoil, as all existing data proved to be wrong by a factor of 2
5. Lightweight gasoline engine
The Wrights also engaged in an organized, step-by-step method of development, and ca

Mawson had hoped to stage the first flight over the Antarctic ice cap, but the plane crashed on the Australian mainland before he set sail. No one was hurt, but with the wings damaged and no time to repair them, the explorer adapted the craft to haul his sledges, adding skis to the undercarriage and a special tail-rudder.

It was an airplane before being loaded on the boat, then it was just a cool looking tug.

Mawson had hoped to stage the first flight over the Antarctic ice cap, but the plane crashed on the Australian mainland before he set sail. No one was hurt, but with the wings damaged and no time to repair them, the explorer adapted the craft to haul his sledges, adding skis to the undercarriage and a special tail-rudder.

It was an airplane before being loaded on the boat, then it was just a cool looking tug.

Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."

The plane was made of gold? I guess they don't build 'em like they used to, huh?

The plane was made of gold? I guess they don't build 'em like they used to, huh?

At the time gold was the most suitable material for the airframe. It was prized both for its strength and weight characteristics. That is, of course, until nuclear fission was discovered. Then the uranium airframe became a no brainer.

Does equipment ever leave Antarctica? I mean, okay, he left the plane behind, sure, because he didn't need it anymore; does that happen still today? What I mean is, when a building or camp is abandoned, or when a tractor or plane breaks down in an irreparable way, is there any attempt to remove it, or do they just abandon it in place, let the wind and snow take its course, and leave it to archeologists years hence to rediscover it?

It would seem that Antarctica could be, among other things, a pretty cool jun

It was still sitting on the ice when he returned in 1929 and 1931, and in 1975 it was photographed after a big ice melt.

Abandoned in 1914, it was still visible at least until 1931. Between then and 1975 or so it was covered in ice but after "a big ice melt it", was visible again. And now, it is barely visible as it is covered in ice again.